The Right to Education Act, 2009 was implemented in the light that education is an entitlement and not an act of charity. The Act includes the provision of a quota for disadvantaged sections in private, unaided schools. However, a near-decade later no meaningful progress has been achieved.

Education as a right requires an inclusive framework covering all eligible children between the ages of six and fourteen. The introduction of a quota for economically and socially disadvantaged children in schools as a policy measure is a step towards attaining this goal. However, it is the implementation and the outcomes which are of interest. Studying them presents an entirely different picture—almost a decade has passed since the central government made education a matter of right that has to be...